"It's the best thing that ever happened to me," answered Donald Whiting instantly. "Our car is a mighty good one and Dad isn't mean about letting me drive it. I can take it frequently and can have plenty of gas and take my crowd; but lordy, I don't believe there's a boy or girl living that doesn't just positively groan when they see one of these little gray Bear Cats go loping past.
And I never even had a ride in one before. I can't get over the fact that it's yours. It wouldn't seem so funny if it belonged to one of the fellows."With steady hand and gradually increasing speed, Linda put the Bear Cat over the roads of early morning. Sometimes she stopped in the shade of pepper, eucalyptus, or palm, where the larks were specializing in their age-old offertory. And then again they went racing until they reached the real desert. Linda ran the car under the shade of a tall clump of bloom-whitened alders.
She took off her hat, loosened the hair at her temples, and looked out across the long morning stretch of desert.
"It's just beginning to be good," she said. She began pointing with her slender hand. "That gleam you see over there is the gold of a small clump of early poppies. The purple beyond it is lupin. All these exquisite colors on the floor are birds'-eyes and baby blue eyes, and the misty white here and there is forget-me-not. It won't be long til thousands and thousands of yucca plants will light their torches all over the desert and all the alders show their lacy mist. Of course you know how exquisitely the Spaniards named the yucca 'Our Lord's Candles.'
Isn't that the prettiest name for a flower, and isn't it the prettiest thought?""It certainly is," answered Donald.
"Had any experience with the desert?" Linda asked lightly.
"Hunted sage hens some," answered Donald.
"Oh, well, that'll be all right," said Linda. "I wondered if you'd go murdering yourself like a tenderfoot.""What's the use of all this artillery?" inquired Donald as he stepped from the car.
"Better put on your hat. You're taller than most of the bushes;you'll find slight shade," cautioned Linda. "The use is purely a matter of self-protection. The desert has got such a devil of a fight for existence, without shade and practically without water, that it can't afford to take any other chance of extermination, and so it protects itself with needles here and spears there and sabers at other places and roots that strike down to China everywhere. First thing we are going to get is some soap.""Great hat!" exclaimed Donald. "If you wanted soap why didn't you bring some?""For all you know," laughed Linda, "I may be going to education you up a little. Dare you to tell me how many kinds of soap Ican find today that the Indians used, and where I can find it.""Couldn't tell you one to save my life," said Donald.
"And born and reared within a few miles of the desert!" scoffed Linda. "Nice Indian you'd make. We take our choice today between finding deer-brush and digging for amole, because the mock oranges aren't ripe enough to be nice and soapy yet. I've got the deer-brush spotted, and we'll pass an amole before we go very far. Look for a wavy blue-green leaf like a wide blade of grass and coming up like a lily."So together they went to the deer-brush and gathered a bunch of flowers that Linda bound together with some wiry desert grass and fastened to her belt. It was not long before Donald spied an amole, and having found one, discovered many others growing near.
Then Linda led the way past thorns and brush, past impenetrable beds of cholla, until they reached a huge barrel cactus that she had located with the glasses. Beside this bristling monstrous growth Linda paused, and reached for the axe, which Donald handed to her. She drew it lightly across the armor protecting the plant.
"Short of Victrola needles?" she inquired. "Because if you are, these make excellent ones. A lot more singing quality to them than the steel needles, not nearly so metallic.""Well, I am surely going to try that," said Donald. "Never heard of such a thing."Linda chopped off a section of plant. Then she picked one of the knives from the bucket and handed it to him.
"All right, you get what you want," she said, "while I operate on the barrel."She set her feet firmly in the sand, swung the axe, and with a couple of deft strokes sliced off the top of the huge plant, and from the heart of it lifted up half a bucketful of the juicy interior, with her dipper.
"If we didn't have drink, here is where we would get it, and mighty good it is," she said, pushing down with the dipper until she formed a small pool in the heart of the plant which rapidly filled. "Have a taste.""Jove, that is good!" said Donald. "What are you going to do with it?""Show you later," laughed Linda. "Think I'll take a sip myself."Then by a roundabout route they started on their return to the car. Once Linda stopped and gathered a small bunch of an extremely curious little plant spreading over the ground, a tiny reddish vine with quaint round leaves that looked as if a drop of white paint rimmed with maroon had fallen on each of them.
"I never saw that before," said Donald. "What are you going to do with it?""Use it on whichever of us gets the first snake bite," said Linda. "That is rattlesnake weed and if a poisonous snake bites you, score each side of the wound with the cleanest, sharpest knife you have and then bruise the plant and bind it on with your handkerchief, and forget it.""Is that what you do?" inquired Donald.
"Why sure," said Linda, "that is what I would do if a snake were so ungallant as to bite me, but there doesn't seem to be much of the antagonistic element in my nature. I don't go through the desert exhaling the odor of fright, and so snakes lie quiescent or slip away so silently that I never see them.""Now what on earth do you mean by that?" inquired Donald.
